Cottonwood leaves

NAU Regents’ Professor Tom Whitham and other members of the Cottonwood
Ecology Group at Northern Arizona University have been studying the Freemont
cottonwood tree for decades. Their
interdisciplinary research has led to the discovery that an entire landscape
can be altered by changing one gene in a plant or animal. The scientific journey that led to that
conclusion is the subject of the documentary movie “A Thousand Invisible Cords:
Connecting Genes to Ecosystems.” The film was produced by Dan Boone and Ryan
Belnap of NAU’s IDEA Lab. Photo: IDEA Lab